What’s the difference between design and innovation?
To design, according to Herbert Simon, winner of both the Nobel and Turing awards, “is to devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.”
Our internal definition of innovation is “new ideas that add value.”
The differences are nuanced, but they often used interchangeably.
Why does the innovation team use design thinking, and how do we call ourselves designers who do innovation?
Is design situated within innovation, or the other way around? Do they both sit on a spectrum?
Entire fields and institutes are dedicated to design and innovation separately. Most practitioners intuitively blend the two. We talk about innovation here at the CB, but less about design. Today we’ll shed a little light on design as the philosophy which drives our profession.
What great serendipity then that Dieter Rams turned 89 this week. Thought experiment: think of a standard electric razor, pocket radio, coffee grinder or calculator. Chances are, the image you have in your mind is made by Braun, designed by Dieter Rams. Or, if you’ve ever used an iPod, apple calculator or iMac, you’ve experienced how his influence can transcend decades and modalities.
(Image credit Matthew E. May, Start It Up)
In 1976, Dieter Rams gave a speech in New York on his design work to date. For Rams, his 10 principles for good design were a method of organizing his own thinking about what makes good design.
They are re-shared here, with credit to Vitsoe, Rams’ design firm.
Good design is innovative. The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.
Good design makes a product useful. A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.
Good design is aesthetic. The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our person and our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.
Good design makes a product understandable. It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.
Good design is unobtrusive. Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.
Good design is honest. It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.
Good design is long-lasting. It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail. Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the user.
Good design is environmental-friendly. Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimizes physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.
Good design is as little design as possible. Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.
These design principles were written specifically for industrial product design. The fact that they hold true not just across decades, but across products, services and experiences makes them evermore powerful.
When you see design through the broadest lens, in Simon’s definition, it becomes clear that innovation is a subset of design. When you see innovation in utilitarian terms, Rams’ principles bring it to life.
No surprise we organize our team by design chapters. Anything can be designed, and anyone can be a designer. At the same time, a design-only approach misses the “adds value” portion of innovation. Design for design’s sake doesn’t pay pensions.
It’s why we spend as much time on the business models, governance structures, partnerships, risks and narratives.
But it’s why the conversation sometimes gets muddied in definitions, and why innovation is often equated to new customer propositions. It’s why we find ourselves as a team answering, yes, and… to questions like “do you do focus groups?”
Because there’s so much more to innovation than just new products and services. And there’s so much more to design than commercial considerations.
We’ve pushed the natural limits of the definition of innovation close to its logical limit. Now the exciting part happens. We get to define what’s next.
Sometimes these crystal balls explore questions raised by you, and other times they amplify signals to a deserving audience.
Some crystals balls are written for the team. Others are written for our broader organization colleagues.
This time, it’s for both.
My challenge to you is to consider Rams’ principles of good design in your work, whatever that may be. How can you apply them when designing a workshop, a business case, a partnership or a strategy?
Bringing design to the forefront will help us understand each other, bonded by common language and purpose. Think about designing for retirement, for investment, for today and for tomorrow in light of Dieter Rams’ 10 principles.
Think how design and innovation complement each other as distinct entities.
We can then carry the torch forward, into new applications of innovation, designing new opportunities to manifest preferred futures.
When you have good design, innovation works as it should. When do innovation well, good design thrives.
When you have design at the core, definitions define themselves. When you see the world as a designer, you become an active participant – with both the right and responsibility to get it right.
Here’s to us designing what’s next.
Onward.
What we’re reading
Software Ate The World, Now AI Is Eating Software - What are you going to do?
Satire: The Sarcastic Vehicle for Futurists - the more we say “that will never happen” with certainty, the more likely it will become fodder for satire – and then become our reality, whether we realize it consciously or not.
Explicit Economics - In the future, we'll pay to work, get paid to consume, and gamble to keep our money safe.
Forget about the business case for sustainability – Instead we should ask, “what’s the sustainability case for business?”
The Anxiety of Influencers – A reporter from Harper’s embeds in a “Content House” with a bunch of TikTok influencers. Weird things ensue.
Last word
"My heart belongs to the details. I always found them to be more important than the big picture. Nothing works without details. They are everything, the baseline of quality."
Dieter Rams